This invention relates to passenger restraint systems, and more particularly, to a wheelchair restraint for locking a wheelchair in place in a motor vehicle.
Typical passenger restraint systems employed with conventional transportation seating may be of either the active or passive type. Passive systems include air bags and compartmentalization approaches. Active restraint systems, however, usually take the form of lap and shoulder belts adapted to hold a passenger in place on the seat in a crash situation. Conventional seating, fixably attached to a vehicle and including such active restraint systems, are easily used by non-handicapped passengers. However, handicapped passengers who normally occupy wheelchairs are not able to use such systems without a great deal of effort or without assistance.
In vehicles which are designed to transport both wheelchair passengers and non-handicapped passengers, seats have been developed wherein the bench portion of the seat may be pivoted from a horizontal position to a vertical position. Some form of wheelchair restraint or retainer mechanism is then attached to the undersurface of the bench portion of the seat. The wheelchair restraint or retainer mechanism is designed to lock the wheel of the wheelchair in place. Once the wheelchair is locked in place, a shoulder and lap belt restraint system may be employed to provide crash protection to the wheelchair occupant. Such seating arrangements eliminate the need for lifting the passenger from the wheelchair and onto a conventional transverse seat but may also be used for transporting non-handicapped passengers in a conventional manner.
Heretofore, at least one form of wheelchair restraint mechanism attachable to the undersurface of a bench seat or attachable to any other point on the interior of the vehicle has been proposed. This wheelchair restraint mechanism employs a single generally U-shaped clamp pivotally mounted on a bracket securable to the interior of the vehicle. One wheel of a wheelchair is backed into the U-shaped clamp which pivots to a position generally transverse of the vehicle so that one leg of the clamp will restrain the wheel and position the wheelchair in place. A manually shiftable arrangement is provided for holding the U-shaped clamp in the restraining position and for releasing the clamp in order to release the wheelchair.